Award Winning Blog

2008 Year-end Fundraising Results For Benchmarking

In the current edition of Mal Warwick Associates’ latest e-newsletter, Peter Schoewe kindly shares this analysis of year-end direct mail returns from the firm’s (and some other) clients. The results analyzed are from 1 October 2008 through 31 January 2009, compared to the same period a year earlier. And note: only direct mail returns are […]

Learn More March 6, 2009

Mommy Math

If moms are a key element of your target audience for fundraising or communications, read on. This article by Stephanie Azzarone, who blogs at Mom Market Trends, makes a key point. When moms are looking for advice, including on potential purchases, they prefer to talk to peers rather than experts. And this conferring with peers […]

Learn More March 5, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

I just got around to seeing Slumdog Millionaire last weekend, and was left feeling pretty miserable about the lives of children in India. So I was pleased to receive this press release today from CAFAmerica, an organization that helps foundations and individuals direct their international philanthropy wisely. Apparently the movie has sparked a surge in […]

Learn More March 4, 2009

Offering “Touch” And “Experience”

Yesterday I talked about the challenge for nonprofits in offering donors and prospects the opportunity to actually "touch" and "experience" their organizations. The assumption being that such closer connection would benefit fundraising. Here’s a terrific example, albeit in a category that has lots of tangibles to offer its audience — a museum. In this case, […]

Learn More March 3, 2009

How Do Fundraisers Do This?

Recently I read two articles from the commercial marketing world that — for me — raised the question: "How do fundraisers do this?" The articles deal with the importance of the non-cerebral side of, first, making a sale, and then, winning loyalty. In this report from Science Daily, we read that if the customer touches […]

Learn More March 2, 2009

The Intimacy Of Social Networks

Today I’m forwarding two quite different articles about online social networks — both have relevance to online fundraising. The first, from Center for Research, is your typical report on social network usage — who does it, what they do, etc. It’s actually a compilation of two other reports from Netpop Research and Insight Express. When […]

Learn More February 27, 2009